Santa Claws: Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Baby, It’s Cold Outside

“What kind of friend shoots you in the butt?” mourned Rudolph.  “At least shoot me in the face, where I can see it coming! People have no class nowadays.”

         Jonathan was scouring the room for some sort of exit and thus only half-heard his ally.  The room was bare except for an empty closet, a locked door, and a barred window.  There was not even a vent to let in air or heat.  Artsy snowflakes mottled the light blue wallpaper, painted in a linear slant from corner to corner.  He had torn down some of this wallpaper in hopes of revealing a concealed switch or passage, but to no avail.  He had also charged at the door like a Green Bay Packers defensive lineman, but this had only resulted in some bruises and one unfortunate incident with his funny bone and the doorknob.  His last resort had been to command Rudolph to charge at the door, to which the animal had replied that he was no one’s doormat, that he was a free reindeer living in a free realm, and that never again would his kin submit to the oppression of humanity.  Jonathan had not the faintest idea what he was talking about, but he decided to lighten up on the commands.

“Santa shot you in the leg, Rudy,” he reminded his friend.  “And I for one am just glad he used a tranquilizer instead of a sniper rifle.”

“Amen to that, brother,” said Rudolph.  “Still, Santa and I used to be good pals.  Heck, just a week before he started going all crazy, he and I were roasting chestnuts on an open fire.  I don’t like chestnuts, and I hate the song even more, but it was good times.”

Jonathan walked across the room and tugged on the bars in front of the window in vain.  “Well, if Santa doesn’t let us out soon and stop these antics of his, he’ll never roast a single chestnut ever again.”

“What does that mean? You’re going to kill him?”

“No, I’m going to give him a big hug and thank him for kidnapping me.” Jonathan rolled his eyes. “Yes, if I run into the man, I’m going to kill him.  That’s the only way to stop someone like this.”

Rudolph squinted, and something changed in the way he looked at his new friend.  “Irony isn’t a precious metal, you know.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind.  Let’s just get out of here.”

Jonathan punched a wall.  “That’s what I’ve been trying to do for the past twenty-seven minutes, and you’ve just been standing around doing nothing!”

“False.  I have been thinking. And I know exactly what to do.”

“I’m not going to join you in singing about yourself,” said the boy, crossing his arms, “especially since we did that five minutes ago.”

Rudolph shook his head and turned toward the window.  “Watch and learn.” He reared up on his back legs, rested his front hooves on either side of the window, and forced his snout between the iron bars.  Then he closed his eyes and brightened his nose by a few hundred lumens.  Indeed, it was so bright that Jonathan had to cover his eyes and watch through the spaces between his fingers.  Rudolph turned his nose off for a few seconds before increasing its brightness again; he followed this pattern several times, backed away from the wall, and trotted over to the boy.  “Go and do likewise, human.”

Jonathan raised an eyebrow.  “Do likewise? Now?”

“No, not now.  Just, you know…in general.”

“Sorry, I wasn’t given the blessing of a glowing appendage.” The boy sighed and approached the window.  “What did you just do, anyway?”

“I’d stay away from the wall, if I were you.”

He had taken a step back per the reindeer’s suggestion just in the nick of time.  There was a massive cracking sound, and then the wall broke away from the rest of the building in an instant.  The two companions found themselves exposed to the frigidity of the arctic.  A light wind strung with snowflakes gusted ahead of them, toward an expanse of icy, snow-laden hills.  The window had been rather clouded with thick frost and had therefore been useless for viewing the outside world; now Jonathan could clearly tell that the shadow of night still covered the land.  He did not have time to dwell on the question of how it could still be dark, however.  He was too busy noticing the rather gargantuan yeti that was standing in the foreground, holding the detached wall over his head as if it were a box of pizza.

“What in the world is that monstrosity?” he exclaimed, rushing to Rudolph’s side.

“Oh, don’t worry about him,” said the reindeer.  “That’s Frosty’s grumpy second cousin, Abominable.  He doesn’t talk much, and when he does, it’s Latin, so there’s just no point in trying to have a conversation.  He is good for getting you out of really sticky situations, though.”

“Would he be able to help us with Santa?”

“Afraid not.  His wife only lets him leave the cave for fifteen minutes every evening.  They have eighteen kids and are thinking about adopting a couple more.  The dad-life, you know.”

“Wow.  That sounds terrible.”

“I’m sure it is.  Then again, rumor has it you’re only fifteen, and I’m a mere sixteen hundred, so maybe our thoughts on the matter will change.  Only time will tell.  Now let’s get going, Legcheese!”

The reindeer stepped out into the cold with the crunch of the snow beneath his hooves, and Jonathan scurried after him.  They both nodded in thanks to Abominable, who waved with his free hand and said “Valēte” with a kind smile.  Jonathan hugged himself for warmth and gazed up at the cloudless sky.  There was little light pollution here at the northernmost part of the world; he was able to see with great clarity a smattering of stars, constellations, and even a few galaxies.  With some trepidation, he realized that he had no idea which direction was north, west, east, or south; in fact, he was not sure how one could travel farther north at the northernmost point of a sphere! He supposed that no matter where one headed from such a point, he had no choice but to move south.  But an imperfect man could not expect to walk in a straight line from a single location, so at what point would “south” become “southwest” or southeast”? And why in the blazes did they not teach this in school? Fearing an aneurysm, he decided that he hated geometry and attempted to turn his thoughts elsewhere.

Regardless of the direction, the duo were moving toward a cluster of hills illuminated dimly by the stars.  Jonathan was departing from the danger of Santa’s compound, but drifting so far from a place of manmade light brought him great discomfort.  It was the chillness of the land made him most uncomfortable, however.

“I don’t think I can stay out here more than a minute or two, Rudy,” he said, his teeth chattering.  “We human beings usually don’t have much fur to protect us from inclement weather.”

“You’ll be warm in a moment,” replied his ally, motioning toward a building ahead of them.  “Just be patient.  We’re about to kill two harp seals with one stone.”

“Why would you kill a seal? They’re like 50 percent as cute as unicorns.”

“It’s just an expression, Legcheese.  Don’t get your panties in a bunch.”

He resented the statement (primarily because his mother had bought him Toy Story underwear as an early Christmas present), but he was too cold to argue.  “Why are we going this way?” And not back to the compound to confront Santa? he wanted to add; but he stayed silent on the matter.  “If your goal is to escape to a place of safety so we can think of a plan to stop Santa, can’t we just fly out of here?”

Rudolph looked back at him and shook his head.  “I’m afraid not, human.  Shortly after Santa lost it, he installed several reservoirs of automated homing missiles at key locations around his house.  If we so much as throw a snowball thirty feet off the ground, it’ll be vaporized.  And I don’t know about you, but I don’t want little bits of Rudolph scattered all over the North Pole.  That would not be a pretty sight.  And in all honesty….”

He continued to speak for a minute or two, but Jonathan was too busy shivering and reflecting on the evening’s events to listen.  Also, he wondered if a man insane enough to surround his house with homing missiles might take additional measures to secure his residence.  Were they on camera right now? Was Santa watching their every move across the frozen landscape, his paunch rising and falling with laughter as they walked into a trap? Did an army of corrupted elves await them in the hills ahead? All of this is reasonable speculation, he thought.  If Apo could raise the dead and make them hostile to a common enemy, and could give a group of wild birds the ability to fight like demon-ninjas, then I wouldn’t be surprised with the depth of Santa’s corruption.  He kicked a mound of snow in his frustration.  Curse you, Apo! You have made the past few months of my life a living hell!

Once they reached the building in the hills, Rudolph nodded toward the door and Jonathan opened it.  A blast of warmth hit him and brought immediate relief from the icy fingers of the north.  They were in a massive warehouse filled with bins, snowmobiles, pallets, stacks of boxes bound in plastic wrap, and several electrical boxes.  He was shocked by the sheer size of the building’s interior; he figured that it was larger in square feet than many a town.  As he looked closer at the wrapped products, he realized that they were all manner of knickknacks beloved by the children of the world.  Every toy one could possibly imagine was here—and not in Santa’s bag, as one would expect them to be before the dawn of Christmas morning.  It all began to make sense to him.  Santa’s “gift” to poorly behaved children this year was punishment, thought he, and no one got the presents that they asked for.  The elves created the presents in his workshop and stored them in this warehouse until further notice.

“There will be some warm clothing in some of these bins,” Rudolph explained, shaking off some of the snowflakes that remained on his fur.  “Take whatever you need and meet me over at that green electrical box over there.  Then I’ll tell you the next part of my escape plan.”

Jonathan frowned.  “Why don’t you just tell me the plan right now? I’m not fond of being in the dark.”

“Fine.  There’s a barbed-wire fence that surrounds Santa’s house; it’s three hundred feet from the house in every direction, and very tall.  Because of this, and since Santa has homing missiles, the only way out of the complex is through a gate that’s about six hundred feet from us.  On top of being covered with barbed wire, the fence and gate are also electric, so you’ll turn into Long Jonathan Silver’s breaded chicken if you touch them.  That electrical box over there will let us power down the electricity in the fence and gate, and even let us open the gate.  After that, we need to take one of these snowmobiles and drive over to the gate as fast as we possibly can.  I can run faster than those other pathetic excuses for reindeer (especially Prancer; the dude is useless outside of winning dressage contests), but we’ll need the speed of a snowmobile to reach the gate before someone closes it.”

“That last part seems like quite a gamble,” Jonathan pointed out.  “What if we don’t reach the gate in time?”

“Then we’ll have to bribe, seduce, or injure the gatekeeper.  Unfortunately for us, Santa hired a wealthy, asexual elf who walks around in full body armor.  So let’s get it right the first time.”

“Right.” Jonathan left his friend’s side and proceeded to dig through the storage bins until he found some sweats, the thickest socks he had ever seen, a moleskin shirt, and a windbreaker with a woolen inlay.  He also found a massive bag of beanies shaped like pandas’ heads, so he donned one and followed the reindeer to the electrical box.  The animal glanced at him and snickered but said nothing.  Once they reached the box, Rudolph informed him of the steps he needed to take to turn off the fence’s electricity and open the gate.

“But don’t open the gate just yet,” the reindeer implored him.  “No one will notice that the electricity is off, but an open gate is rather obvious.  We’ll need the snowmobile ready for us the moment we open it.”

“Understood,” Jonathan replied.  “But last time we tried to get away, that evil fool caught us.  How’s it going to be any different this time?”

“He still thinks we’re locked away in the room at the compound; the last thing he’ll expect is that we’ve escaped the room and left the property.  And once we’re out in the expanse of the arctic, no one on earth will be able to find us.”  Rudolph’s lips curled into a grin, and his fur stood on end with excitement.  “Are you ready to leave the property, Legcheese?”

The boy nodded.  “Absolutely,” he lied.

Out of the warehouse the snowmobile soared with a great growl of its engine.  Jonathan was quite tempted to take off one of his outer layers and wave it in the air with a series of exuberant yowls as he drove with his free hand (he was pretty sure he saw someone do that in a movie at some point), but he thought it would be a better idea to focus on driving.  After all, this was the first time he had ever been behind the wheel of a vehicle, and he quickly realized that even a slight error at a great speed would result in at least a few broken bones or a body-sized snow rash.  Rudolph was buckled into the back seat, panting like a dog and excitedly looking around in every direction.  They zoomed past Santa’s home, which was nearly as large as the warehouse, and Jonathan was able to see inside through some of the windows.  The largest portion of the complex, it seemed, was a factory filled to the brim with machinery and busy elves.  He was amused by the little pointed hats that moved to and fro, most of the elves being too short for their heads to be visible above the windowsill.

Per Rudolph’s instructions, he made a gradual right turn and curved around a corner of the house.  They decelerated and swerved around a snowman dressed in a blonde wig and a tight dress, and the boy could have sworn he heard his reindeer companion catcall at the inanimate object.  Then they continued forward, moving along the side of the house and approaching its front yard.  After several seconds, the gate became visible ahead of them.  Also visible, beyond the boy’s right shoulder, was a small stair that led to a side door in the main building.

“Ahead of us!” Rudolph shouted, barely audible over the roaring engine.  “There’s the gate!”

“I have lost weight!” Jonathan replied, thrilled.  “But how do you know that? We just met a couple hours ago.”

“Don’t call anyone a ho, do you hear me? Especially not Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

“Sorry, bud.  I don’t drink beer.”

“OK, let’s stop talking and just focus on—WHOA!”

Rudolph’s sentence was cut short when Jonathan made an abrupt slant directly toward Santa’s house.  They shot past some benches and a blacktop, where several elves were playing duck-duck-goose.  They jumped a ramp and glided over a wandering tauntaun.  They nearly knocked over a mobile restaurant, out of which Abominable was selling tacos (what kind of meat he used in his recipe, neither passenger dared to guess).  As the side wall of the house grew near, Rudolph proceeded to snuff and snort and scream and shake his antlers against Jonathan’s back.  He even tried to distract the reckless driver by declaring that no one was home right now, that beyond the gate there was the most magnificent city full of gingerbread houses and pony-shaped candy canes, and that he and Jonathan were actually related—but he could only prove it if they took an ancestry test.  All of these attempts were to no avail.  The boy was determined to reach his destination, and perhaps only Ms. Unicorn herself, miraculously cresting a hill of snow in her regal stance, her hide ablaze with its natural luminescence, could halt his desperate flight.  But she did not make an appearance, and Rudolph could only watch in horror as his new friend stopped the snowmobile alongside the stair and leapt out onto the snow.

“I won’t be long,” the boy promised, breathing ice crystals into the air.  “Normally I wouldn’t leave someone out in the cold like this...but you’re a reindeer, and you’re made for this sort of weather.”

“My goodness, Legcheese.  What in Dale’s tiny beard are you doing?” Rudolph pressed against the seatbelt, but Jonathan had secured it tightly.  “Let me out of here! I thought we were going to be best friends!”

Jonathan swung back around.  “You don’t understand the potency of what’s in that cauldron, Rudy!  The man who created the potion that corrupted Santa...I met him in person.  His goal was to completely wipe out the memory of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.  We stopped him...but he must have taken it to the next level with Christmas.  He wasn’t satisfied with removing the memory of the holiday; he wanted to transform a kind gift-giver into a borderline murderer.  Santa is evil through and through.  I’ve already told you that there’s only one way to stop someone like that.  And if I don’t stop him, and he gets worse over the next year...well, then there may not be enough children for anyone to have a best friend.”

“Bro, that was so deep, Adele was rolling in it,” commented the reindeer, his eyes wide.  “You’re pretty intellectual for a teenager.  And while I sit here, covered in snowflakes and impressed, I also have to wonder if maybe you’re jumping to conclusions.  Why do you think death is the only answer?”

“I’ve fought zombies, Rudy!” Jonathan’s hands flew all over the place to emphasize his point.  “I’ve fought corrupted turkeys! I’ve fought a mad scientist and his mother! None of them would stop until they were stopped for good!”

“You’re just a boy.” Rudolph was clearly trying not to cry, probably because frozen tears would be extremely painful.  “Surely there must be some innocence left in you.  And I’ve already told you that Santa and I have been close for so many years.  I don’t want him to die, and I think that deep inside, neither do you.  There has to be another way….”

“There isn’t.” The boy’s tone permitted no response.  “Now if you don’t mind, I need to go save the world.”